Valve Lays Off 13 Full-Time Employees

According to an investigative report by UploadVR, Valve has laid off 13 full-time employees, some within the VR department, during the month of February. The report cross-referenced the current employee page on Valve’s website with a cached version from the end of January and shows a number of employees no longer listed. The author of the article also stated that they checked LinkedIn profiles of the missing names to find they no longer have Valve listed as their current employer.

Valve has issued a statement to UploadVR.

Last month, 13 full time employees were let go and a portion of our contractor agreements were terminated. It’s an unfortunate part of business, but does not represent any major changes at the company. We thank those affected for their contribution and wish them well in future endeavors.

A few months ago, a Reddit user by the name of 2flock supposedly leaked photos of a VR headset being made by Valve. According to 2flock, “I have no idea where these came from. appears to be a leak. Someone dumped it in my inbox.” The validity of the headset prototype originating from Valve is questionable at best (2flock has not released the source of the pictures), but one image clearly shows the Valve logo on a chip inside the unit. 2flock made another thread about the recent layoffs. “They fired like half the Valve hardware team recently,” says 2flock, further substantiating UploadVR’s claim.

While the specific departments affected by the layoffs are still unconfirmed by Valve, it is clear that Valve is one more domino fallen in the recent string of layoffs within the gaming community. Some of the largest gaming companies, including Activision Blizard, and FireMonkeys, one of EA’s studios, have recently laid off employees, and the latest from Valve shows that there may not be a clear end in sight.